The Games a Gator Plays

The Gator on the Run.

Here I have found some pictures of Molly-Gator from March, wherein she had escaped the yard. Molly-Gator is a professional escape artist, and very good at her job. Just when we think we finally have the perimeter secure, she makes another break for it. The most exasperating thing about these escapes is that she thinks capture is a game. She will not come to me or j^C if her life depended on it, but she'll run the neighborhood making friends with anyone who happens to be standing in their yard. I have found her more than once a few streets over, on her back, having her belly rubbed by some random by-stander. 

She mocks me.

Unless she is caught by someone while she is on the loose, the only way to catch The Gator is to start driving around the neighborhood. She likes to give chase, so I drive up and down the streets at a fairly fast speed, so that she is about 20 feet behind the car. Any slower and she likes to catch up with me and then dart out in front of the vehicle. Not good. I am terrified that I am going to hit her someday.

Come on Sprout! Chase me!

This whole process is just a game to her. I imagine she feels that she doesn't get enough exercise or   something. I cannot believe that she would make such an assertion though. We have a large back yard with lots of toys. When we try to play with her, she can't be bothered. I also take her to the huge local dog park sometimes, where she finds a shady spot and languishes. She might say her evading capture techniques have to do with her need to run and play, but I think it's just because she knows it drives us all bananas. She has a good sense of humor, that dog, and I know she thinks it's funny.

Thief

Daddy has been coddling The Gator since 2009.
No wonder there is a problem

There I was, cozy and cuddly in bed last night, when who should happen to nudge my hand, all cries and pitiful stares, but Molly-Gator.

"Do you want to go outside?" I asked. She whined some more, implying that this was the case. So, I did as all good mothers do. I got out of bed and walked to the back door to let her out. The last thing I wanted was for her to have an accident. Her sad little face belied a full bladder.

It had all been a clever ruse. When I opened the door, Cody, the good dog, ran outside to do his business. But where was The Gator? I went back into the bedroom to see what might be keeping her. It should not have surprised me, what I found. Molly-Gator was curled up in bed where I had been laying, looking happy as a clam, getting pets from her daddy.

This has not been an isolated incident. The next morning, when I got out of bed to let the dogs out and make the family some breakfast, I returned to find that sneaky dog standing on my side of the bed, all doggy smiles and waggy tails.

She is a bed thief and a love sponge, and it will not be tolerated I tell you. The only way to rectify this behavior is with more pets in Gator approved zones. More to come as developments occur.